



V 



THE 

DRUMMOND YEAR BOOK 



FROM 

Henry Drummond 



ARRANGED BY 

ADA L. SUTTON 



BOSTON 
JOSEPH KNIGHT COMPANY 

1894 



.1)693 



Copyright, 1893, 

BY 

Ada L. Sutton. 



Affii-y and / .V7 OiiH 
May 27/fia 



C. J. Peters & Son, 

Type-Setters and Electrotypees, 

145 High St., Boston. 






TO 

MY DARLING BABY 

lEtJttf) 

THIS LITTLE BOOK IS LOVINGLY 
DEDICATED BY HER 

MOTHER. 



Introduction* 



The author from whose works these 
selections have been made, requires no 
word of mine to introduce him to the 
public. Henry Drummond has already 
achieved a world-wide celebrity. 

Should this little volume lead some one 
to a deeper study of his wonderful lectures, 
perchance to the desire for a nobler life, 
the labor shall not have been in vain. 

Ada L. Sutton. 



January is here — 
With eyes that keenly glow ; 
A frost-mailed warrior striding, 
A shadowy steed of snow. 

Edgar Fawcett. 



JSrummontr ffear Booft* 



January 1st. 

To become like Christ is the only thing 
in the world worth caring for ; the thing 
before which every ambition of man is 
folly, and all lower achievement vain. 
Those only who make this quest the su- 
preme desire and passion of their lives 
can even begin to hope to reach it. 

The Changed Life. 

January 2d. 

No worse fate can befall a man in this 
world than to live and grow old alone, un- 
15 



16 JBrummonti gear JSooft* 

loving and unloved. To be lost is to live 
in an unregenerate condition, loveless and 
unloved ; and to be saved is to love ; and 
he that dwelleth in love dwelleth already 
in God. For God is love. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

January 3d. 

Growth is the work of time. But Life 
is not. That conies in a moment. At one 
moment it was dead; the next it lived. 
This is conversion, the " passing," as the 
Bible calls it, " from Death unto Life." 
Natural Law, Biogenesis. 

January 4th. 

Great trials come at lengthened inter- 
vals, and we rise to breast them ; but it is 
the petty friction of our every-day life with 
one another, the jar of business or of work, 



the discord of the domestic circle, the col- 
lapse of our ambition, the crossing of our 
will, the taking down of our conceit, which 
makes inward peace impossible. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

January 5th. 

The Christian life is not a vague effort 
after righteousness — an ill-defined, point- 
less struggle for an ill-defined, pointless 
end. Religion is no dishevelled mass of 
aspiration, prayer, and faith. There is no 
more mystery in religion, as to its pro- 
cesses, than in biology. There is much 
mystery in biology. We know all but 
nothing of life yet, nothing of develop- 
ment. There is the same mystery in the 
spiritual life. But the great lines are 
the same, as decided, as luminous ; and 



18 JBrummonti gear 3Soofe* 

the laws of natural and spiritual are 
the same, as unerring, as simple. 

Natural Law, Conformity to Type. 

January 6th. 

Never let us think evil of men who do 
not see as we do. From the bottom of 
our hearts let us pity them, and let us 
take them by the hand and spend time 
and thought over them, and try to lead 
them to the true light. 

Hoiv to Learn How. 

January 1th. 
Eevelation never volunteers anything 
that man could discover for himself — on 
the principle, probably, that it is only 
when he is capable of discovering it that 
he is capable of appreciating it. 

Introduction to Natural Law. 



©rummonti gear Book* 19 

January Sth. 

No science contributes to another with- 
out receiving a reciprocal benefit. And 
even as the contribution of science to 
religion is the vindication of the natural- 
ness of the supernatural, so the gift of 
religion to science is the demonstration 
of the supernaturalness of the natural. 
Thus, as the supernatural becomes slowly- 
natural, will also the natural become 
slowly supernatural, until in the imper- 
sonal authority of law men everywhere 
recognize the authority of God. 

Preface, Natural Law. 

January 9th. 

Spiritual life ... is the sum total of 
the functions which resist sin. The soul's 
atmosphere is the daily trial, circumstance, 



20 ©rummotrti gear Book* 

and temptation of the world* And as it 
is life alone which gives the plant power 
to utilize the elements, and as without it 
they destroy it, so it is the spiritual life 
alone which gives the soul power to utilize 
temptation and trial ; and without it they 
destroy the soul. 

Natural Law Degeneration, 

January 10th. 

He made the lilies and He made me — 
both on the same broad principle. Both 
together, man and flower, He planted deep 
in the Providence of God ; but as men are 
dull at studying themselves, He points to 
this companion phenomenon to teach us 
how to live a free and natural life — a life 
which God will unfold for us without our 
anxiety, as He unfolds the flower. 

Natural Law, Growth. 



Brumtiumto gear Book* 21 

January lltJi. 

The spiritual world is sirnpiy the outer- 
most segment, circle or circles, of the nat- 
ural world. For purposes of convenience 
we separate the two just as we separ- 
ate the animal world from the plant. But 
the animal world and the plant world 
are the same world. They are different 
parts of one environment. And the 
natural and spiritual are likewise one. 
The inner circles are called the natural, the 
outer the spiritual. And we call them 
spiritual simply because they are beyond 
us, or beyond a part of us. 

Natural Law, Death. 

January 12th. 

It is clear that no man can attempt to 
live both lives. To walk both in the flesh 



22 ffirummonti gear Book 

and in the spirit is morally impossible. 
" No man," as Christ so often emphasized, 
"can serve two masters. ? ' 

Natural Law, Mortification 

January 13th. 
Life is the cradle of eternity. As the 
man is to the animal in the slowness of 
his evolution, so is the spiritual man to 
the natural man. Foundations which have 
to bear the weight of an eternal life must 
be surely laid. Character is to wear for- 
ever; who will wonder or grudge that it 
cannot be developed in a day ? 

The Changed Life. 

January 14th. 
Communion with God — can it be dem- 
onstrated in terms of science that there is 
a correspondence which will never break ? 



©rttmmonii gear ISook. 28 

We do not appeal to science for such a 
testimony. We have asked for its concep- 
tion of an eternal life ; and we have re- 
ceived for answer that eternal life would 
consist in a correspondence which should 
never cease, with an environment which 
should never pass away. And yet what 
would science demand of a perfect corre- 
spondence that is not met by this, the 
knowing of God ? 

Natural Law, Eternal Life, 

January lbth. 

The first step in religion is for man 
to feel his helplessness, Christ's first 
beatitude is to the poor in spirit. The 
condition of entrance into the spiritual 
kingdom is to possess the child-spirit — 
that state of mind combining at once the 



24 ©rummonti gear Book 

profouudest helplessness with the most 
artless feeling of dependence. 

Natural Law, Environment. 

January 16th 
We hear much of love to God. Christ 
spoke much of love to man. We make a 
great deal of peace with heaven. Christ 
made much of peace on earth. Religion 
is not a strange or added thing, but the 
inspiration of the secular life, the breath- 
ing of an eternal spirit through this tem- 
poral world. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

January 11th. 
preposterous and vain man, thou 
who couldst not make a finger-nail of thy 
body, thinkest thou to fashion this wonder- 
ful, mysterious, subtle soul of thine after 



©rummonti gear Bouft, 25 

the ineffable Image ? Wilt thou ever per- 
mit thyself to be conformed to the Image 
of the Son ? Wilt thou, who canst not 
add a cubit to thy stature, submit to be 
raised by the type-life within thee to the 
perfect stature of Christ ? 

Natural Law, Conformity to Type. 

January ISth. 

Thou shalt evolve, thou shalt develop 
all thy faculties to the full ; thou shalt 
attain to the highest conceivable perfec- 
tion of thy race — and so perfect thy race 
— this is the first and greatest command- 
ment of nature. 

Natural Law, Semi- Parasitism. 

January 19th. 

The Image of Christ that is forming 
within us — that is life's one charge. Let 



26 ©rummonti gear ISooft* 

every project stand aside for that. " Till 
Christ be formed" no man's work is fin- 
ished, no religion crowned, no life has 
fulfilled its end. Is the infinite task be- 
gun ? When, how, are we to be different ? 
Time cannot change men. Christ can. 
Wherefore, put on Christ. 

The Changed Life. 

January 20th. 

" If any man love the world, the love 
of the Father is not in him." 

After all, it is by the general bent of 
a man's life, by his heart-impulses and 
secret desires, his spontaneous actions and 
abiding motives, that his generation is 
declared. 

Natural Law, Classification. 



©rummonti gear Book* 27 

January 21st. 

The world itself is about as good a 
world as might be. It has been long in 
the making, its furniture is all in, its laws 
are in perfect working order ; and although 
wise men at various times have suggested 
improvements, there is on the whole a 
tolerably unanimous vote of confidence in 
things as they exist. The Divine Environ- 
ment has little more to do for this planet 
as far as we can see, and so far as the ex- 
isting generation is concerned. 

Natural Law, Environment. 

January 22d. 

The soul which has no correspondence 
with the spiritual environment, is spirit- 
ually dead. It may be that it never pos- 
sessed the spiritual eye or the spiritual ear, 



28 ©rummottti gear 3Soaft. 

or a heart which throbbed in response to 
the love of God. if so, having never lived, 
it cannot be said to have died. But not to 
have these correspondences is to be in the 
state of death. To the spiritual world, 
to the Divine environment, it is dead — 
as a stone which has never lived is dead 
to the environment of the organic world. 
Natural Law, Mortification. 

January 23cL 

The soul, in its highest sense, is a vast 
capacity for God. It is like a curious 
chamber added on to being, and some- 
how involving being ; a chamber with 
elastic and contractile walls, which can 
be expanded, with God as its guest, inim- 
itably, but which, without God, shrinks 
and shrivels until every vestige of the 



©rumm0ttt! gear Book, 29 

Divine is gone, and God's image is left 
without God's Spirit. 

Natural Law, Degeneration. 

January 24th. 

No department of knowledge ever eon- 
tributes to another without receiving its 
own again without usury. . . . 

So must it be with science and religion. 
If the purification of religion comes from 
science, the purification of science, in a 
deeper sense, shall come from religion. 
Introduction, Natural Law. 

January 2bth. 

Spend the time you have spent in sigh- 
ing for fruits in fufilling the conditions of 
their growth. The fruits will come, must 

come. 

Pax Vobiscum. 



30 Urummonti gear 33adt* 

January 26th. 
There lived once a young girl whose 
perfect grace of character was the wonder 
of those who knew her. She wore on her 
neck a gold locket which no one was ever 
allowed to open. One day, in a moment 
of unusual confidence, one of her compan- 
ions was allowed td touch the spring, and 
learn the secret. She saw written these 
words : " Whom having not seen, I love." 
That was the secret of her beautiful life. 
She had been changed into the same Image. 
The Changed Life. 

January 21th. 
Patience, kindness, generosity, humil- 
ity, courtesy, unselfishness, good temper, 
guilelessness, sincerity — these make up 
the supreme gift, the stature of the perfect 
man. You will observe that all are in re- 



fflrummonti gear Book, 31 

lation to men, in relation to life, in relation 
to the known to-day and the near to-mor- 
row, and not the unknown eternity. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

January 2&th. 
Character is a unity, and all the vir- 
tues must advance together to make the 

perfect man. 

The Changed Life. 

January 29th. 
Love is patience. This is the normal 
attitude of love ; love passive ; love wait- 
ing to begin ; not in a hurry ; calm. . . . 
For love understands, and therefore waits. 
The Greatest Thing in the World. 

January SOth, 
Christ never failed to distinguish be- 
tween doubt and unbelief. Doubt is 



32 ©rummontJ gear Book, 

canH believe; unbelief is tvonH believe. 
Doubt is honesty ; unbelief is obstinacy. 
Doubt is looking for light; unbelief is 
content with darkness. 

How to Learn How. 

January 31s£. 

There is no mystery about happiness 
whatever. Put in the right ingredients 
and it must come out. He that abideth 
in Him will bring forth much fruit ; and 
bringing forth much fruit is happiness. 

Pax Vobiscnm. 



Nay, seek not under February's snows 

For summer's crimson rose; 

Its petals frail and fair 
Were long since scattered on the perfumed air. 
Content thee now with frost and hoary rime; 
There are no roses in the winter time. 

A. L. 8. 



JDtummonti gear Book, 35 

February 1st. 
Whether we like it or not, we live in 
glass houses. The mind, the memory, the 
soul, is simply a vast chamber panelled 
with looking-glass. And upon this mirac- 
ulous arrangement and endowment de- 
pends the capacity of mortal souls to 
" reflect the character of the Lord." 

The Changed Life. 

February 2d. 
The best apologetic for Christianity is a 
Christian. 

How to Learn Hoiv. 

February 3d. 

The well-defined spiritual life is not only 

the highest life, but it is also the most 

easily lived. The whole is more easily 

carried than the half. It is the man who 



36 ©rummflttti gear JSoafe. 

tries to make the best of both worlds 
who makes nothing of either. And he 
who seeks to serve two masters misses 
the benediction of both. 

Natural Law, Mortification. 

February 4th. 
You cannot love to order. You can only 
look at the lovely object, and fall in love 
with it, and grow into likeness to it. And 
so look at this perfect character, this 
perfect life. Look at the great sacrifice 
as He laid down Himself, all through life, 
and upon the Cross of Calvary ; and you 
must love Him. And loving Him, you 
must become like Him. 

The Greatest Thing in the World, 

February 6th. 
Do not grudge the hand that is moulding 
the still too shapeless image within you. I 



©rtimmonti gear Book, 37 

is growing more beautiful, though you see 
it not, and every touch of temptation may 
add to its perfection. Therefore keep in 
the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. 
Be among men, and among things, and 
among troubles and difficulties and obsta- 
cles. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

February 6th. 

Nothing that happens in this world hap- 
pens by chance. God is a God of order. 
Everything is arranged upon definite prin- 
ciples and never at random. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

February 1th. 

He who has taken his stand, who has 
drawn a boundary line, sharp and deep, 
about his religious life, who has marked 



38 ©rummonto gear Boofe* 

off all beyond as forever forbidden ground 
to him, finds the yoke easy and the burden 
light. For this forbidden environment 
comes to be as if it were not. His facul- 
ties, falling out of correspondence, slowly 
lose their sensibilities. And the balm of 
death numbing his lower nature releases 
him for the scarce disturbed communion 
of a higher life. So even here to die is 

gain. 

Natural Law, Mortification. 

February 8th. 

Love itself can never be defined. Light 
is a something more than the sum of its 
ingredients, — a glowing, dazzling, tremu- 
lous ether. And love is something more 
than all its elements, — a palpitating, quiv- 
ering, sensitive living thing. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



©rumm0nfc gear 3Soo{u 39 

February 9th. 
The Christian is a unique phenomenon. 
You cannot account for him, and if you 
could he would not be a Christian. 

Natural Law, Growth. 

February 10th. 

It is well to remember that we are to 

give our bodies a living sacrifice — not a 

half-dead sacrifice, as some people seem to 

imagine. 

How to Learn How. 

February 11th. 
It is quite erroneous to suppose that 
science ever overthrows faith, if by that 
is implied that any natural truth can op- 
pose successfully any single spiritual truth. 
Science cannot overthrow faith; but it 

shakes it. 

Preface, Natural Law. 



40 JBrummontu gear Boofe* 

February \2th. 
A religion of effortless adoration may 
be a religion for an angel, but never for a 
man. Not in the contemplative, but in 
the active, lies true hope ; not in rapture, 
but in reality, lies true life ; not in the 
realm of ideals, but among tangible things, 
is man's sanctification wrought. 

The Changed Life. 

February lWi. 

If God is adding to our spiritual stature, 

unfolding the new nature within us, it is 

a mistake to keep twitching at the petals 

with our coarse fingers. ... If God is 

spending work upon a Christian, let him 

be still and know that it is God. And if 

he wants work he will find it there — in 

the being still. 

Natural Law, Growth. 



©rummontj gear JSocfe* 41 

February 14th. 

It is the beautiful work of Christianity 
everywhere to adjust the burdens of life 
to those who bear it, and them to it. It 
has a perfectly miraculous gift of healing. 
Without doing any violence to human 
nature, it sets it right with life, har- 
monizing it with all surrounding things, 
and restoring those who are jaded with 
the fatigue and dust of the world to a new 
grace of living. 

Pax Vobiscum, 

February 15th. 

" Talent develops itself in solitude, 
character in the stream of life." Talent 
develops itself in solitude — the talent of 
prayer, of faith, of meditation, of seeing 
the unseen ; character grows in the stream 



42 JStummcnlJ gear JSoufe. 

of the world's life. That chiefly is where 
men are to learn love. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

February 16th. 
The recognition of the ideal is the first 
step in the direction of conformity. But 
let it be clearly observed that it is but a 
step. There is no vital connection be- 
tween merely seeing the ideal and being 
conformed to it. Thousands admire Christ 
who never become Christians. 

Natural Law, Conformity to Type, 

February 17th. 

Christ is the source of Joy to men in 

the sense in which he is the source of 

Eest. His people share His life, and 

therefore share its consequences ; and one 

of these is joy. 

Pax Vobiscum. 



©rummonto gear iSooft. 43 

February 18th. 

The Christian life is the only life that 
will ever be completed. Apart from Christ 
the life of man is a broken pillar, the race 
of man an unfinished pyramid. One by 
one in sight of eternity all human ideals 
fall short ; one by one before the open 
grave all hopes dissolve. 

Natural Law, Conformity to Type. 

February 19th. 

An altar of some sort men must have — 
God, or nature, or law. But t\e anguish 
of atheism is only a negative proof of 
man's incompleteness. A witness more 
overwhelming is the prayer of the Chris- 
tian. 

Natural Law, Environment. 



44 Brummonti gear Book* 

February 20th. 
The solution of the problem of sanctifi- 
cation is compressed into a sentence : re- 
flect the character of Christ and you will 
become like Christ. 

The Changed Life. 



February 21st. 

The breath of God, blowing where it 
listeth, touches with its mystery of life 
the dead souls of men ; bears them across 
the bridgeless gulf between the natural 
and the spiritual, between the spiritually 
inorganic and the spiritually organic ; en- 
dows them with its own high qualities, and 
develops within them these new and secret 
faculties by which those who are born 
again are said to see the kingdom of God. 
Natural Law, Biogenesis, 



©tumnumto gear Booft. 45 

February 22d, 

Men can be to other men as the shadow 

of a great rock in a thirsty land. Much 

more Christ ; much more Christ as Perfect 

Man ; much more still as Saviour of the 

world. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

February 23d. 
Many men would be religious if they 
knew where to begin ; many would be rnor£ 
religious if they knew where it would end. 
It is not indifference that keeps some men 
from God, but ignorance. " Good Master, 
what must I do to inherit eternal life ? " 
is still the deepest question of the age. 

Natural Law, Eternal Life, 

February 24th, 
A religion without mystery is an ab- 
surdity. 

Natural Law, Biogenesis, 



46 fflrummonfc gear JSoofu 

February 26th. 
Instead of having learned to pray, 
the ecclesiastical parasite becomes satisfied 
with being prayed for. His transactions 
with the Eternal are effected by commis- 
sion. His work for Christ is done by a 
paid deputy. His whole life is a prolonged 
indulgence in the bounties of the church, 
and surely — in some cases at least the 
crowning irony — he sends for the minister 
when he lies down to die. 

Natural Law, Parasitism. 

February 26th. 
Under the right conditions it is as nat- 
ural for character to become beautiful as 
for a flower ; and if on God's earth there 
is not some machinery for effecting it, the 
supreme gift to the world has been for- 
gotten. 

The Changed Life. 



©rummontJ fgtar Book* 47 

February 21th. 

The goal of the organisms of the spirit- 
ual world is nothing less than this, — to be 
" holy as He is holy, and pure as He is 
pure." And by the Law of Conformity to 
Type, their final perfection is secured. The 
inward nature must develop out according 
to its type, until the consummation of one- 
ness with God is reached. 

Natural Law, Classification. 

February 28th. 

The world is not a play-ground ; it is 
a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but 
an education. And the one eternal lesson 
for us all is how better we can love. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



March will bring 
The primrose by the brook, and all the wide 
Green spaces of the forests glorified 
With scent and singing. 



©rummonfc gear Book. 51 

March 1st. 

Nothing is so invisible to most men as 
transparency. 

Natural Law, Conformity to Type. 

March 2d. 

To concentrate upon a few great corre- 
spondences, to oppose to the death the 
perpetual petty larceny of our lives by 
trifles — these are the conditions for the 
highest and happiest life. It is only lim- 
itation which can secure the illimitable. 
Natural Law> Mortification. 

March 3d. 

If the amount of energy lost in trying 

to grow were spent in fulfilling rather the 

conditions of growth, we should have 

many more cubits to show for our stature. 

Natural Law, Growth. 



52 BrummontJ gear Boafe. 

March 4th. 
There are people who go about the 
world looking out for slights ; and they 
are necessarily miserable, for they find 
them at every turn, especially the ima- 
ginary ones. One has the same pity for 
such men as for the very poor. They are 
the morally illiterate. They have had no 
real education, for they have never learned 
how to live. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

March 5th. 
No single fact in science has ever dis- 
credited a fact in religion. 

Introduction, Natural Law. 

March 6th. 
How many prodigals are kept out of 
the kingdom of God by the unlovely 



Brummotttj gear Book, 53 

characters of those who profess to be 
inside ! 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

March 1th. 

There are some men ana some women 
in whose company we are always at our 
best. While with them we cannot think 
mean thoughts or speak ungenerous words. 
Their mere presence is elevation, purifica- 
tion, sanctity. All the best stops in our 
nature are drawn out by their intercourse, 
and we find a music in our souls that was 
never there before. 

The Changed Life. 

March Sth. 

Men look at truth, at different bits of 
it, and they see different things of course, 
and they are very apt to imagine that the 



54 ©rummotttJ gear Book* 

thing which they have seen is the whole 
affair — the whole thing. In reality, we 
can only see a very little bit at a time ; 
and we must, I think, learn to believe 
that other men can see bits of truth as 
well as ourselves. 

How to Learn How. 

March 9th. 

Probably the most of the difficulties of 
trying to live the Christian life arise from 
attempting to half live it. 

Natural Law, Classification. 

March 10th. 

We aspire to the top to look for rest. 
It lies at the bottom. Water rests only 
when it gets to the lowest place. So do 
men. Hence, be lowly. 

Pax Vobiscum. 



Urumm0titi gear JJooft. 55 

March lWi. 

Just because God worketh in him, as 
the evidence and triumph of it, the true 
child of God works out his own salvation 
— works it out having really received it — 
not as a light thing, a superfluous labor, 
but with fear and trembling, as a reason- 
able and indispensable service. 

Natural Law, Semi-Parasitism. 

March 12th. 

Half the world is on the wrong scent 
in the pursuit of happiness. They think 
it consists in having and getting, and in 
being served by others. It consists in 
giving and in serving others. " He that 
would be great among you," said Christ, 
" let him serve." 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



56 JSrummonto gear JSoofe* 

March 13th. 
The temporal is the husk and frame- 
work of the eternal, and thoughts can be 
uttered only through things. 

Introduction, Natural Law. 

March ltth. 
The impression of God is kept up by 
experience, not by logic. 

How to Learn How. 

March 15th. 
The amount of spiritual longing in the 
world, — in the hearts of unnumbered 
thousands of men and women in whom we 
should never suspect it; among the wise 
and thoughtful; among the young and 
gay, who seldom assuage and never betray 
their thirst, — this is one of the most 
wonderful and touching facts of life. It 



©rutnmonli gear 33ooft # 57 

is not more heart that is needed, but more 

light ; not more force, but a wiser direction 

to be given to very real energies already 

there. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

March 16th. 
While growth is a slow and gradual 
process, the change from death to life, 
alike in the natural and spiritural spheres, 
is the work of a moment. Whatever the 
conscious hour of the second birth may be, 
— in the case of an adult it is probably 
defined by the first real victory over sin, — 
it is certain that on biological principles 
the real turning-point is literally a moment. 
Natural Law, Mortification. 

March 11th. 
The way of teaching humility is gener- 
ally by humiliation. There is probably 



58 JBrutnmonti gear Bouft, 

no other school for it. When a man enters 
himself as a pupil in such a school it 
means a very great thing. There is muoh 
rest there, but there is also much work. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

March 18tk. 

Nature never provides for man's wants 
in any direction, bodily, mental, or spirit- 
ual, in such a form as that he can simply 
accept her gifts automatically. She puts 
all the mechanical powers at his disposal 
— but he must make his lever. 

Natural Law, Parasitism, 

March 19th. 
The sneer at the godly man for his im- 
perfections is ill-judged. A blade is a 
small thing. At first it grows very near 
the earth. It is often soiled and crushed 



Bruntmcnto gear JSoofe. 59 

and downtrodden. But it is a living thing. 
The great dead stone beside it is more 
imposing ; only it will never be anything 
else than a stone. But this small blade — 
it doth not yet appear what it shall be. 

Natural Law, Growth. 

March 20th. 

You will find as you look back upon 
your life that the moments that stand out, 
the moments when you have really lived, 
are the moments when you have done 
things in a spirit of love. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

March 21st 

The final test of religion is not religious- 
ness, but Love. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



60 JSrutnmonti £§sar 33fldt* 

March 22d. 

Make Christ your most constant com- 
panion. ... Be more under His influence 
than under any other influence. Ten 
minutes spent in His society every day, 
ay, two minutes, if it be face to face, 
and heart to heart, will make the whole 
day different. 

The Changed Life. 

March 23d. 
The true environment of the moral life 
is God. Here conscience wakes. Here 
kindles love. Duty here becomes heroic, 
and that righteousness begins to live 
which alone is to live forever. 

Natural Law, Death. 

March 24th. 
"He that hath the Son of God hath 
Life, and he that hath n<3t the Son hath 



©rummonti gear JSooft. 61 

not Life." This, as we take it, defines 
the correspondence which is to bridge the 
grave. This is the clew to the nature of 
the Life that lies at the back of the spirit- 
ual organism. And this is the true solu- 
tion of the mystery of Eternal Life. 

Natural Law, Eternal Life. 

March 25th. 

This is what Christianity is for — to 

teach men the art of life. And its whole 

curriculum lies in one word, " Learn of 

Me." 

Pax Vobiscum. 

March 26th. 

Better a little faith dearly won, better 
launched alone on the infinite bewilder- 
ment of Truth, than perish on the splendid 
plenty of the richest creeds. 

Natural Law, Parasitism. 



62 ffitummonti gear Bocife 

March 21th. 

Neglect does more for the soul than 
make it miss salvation. It despoils it of 
its capacity for salvation. Degeneration 
in the spiritual sphere involves primarily 
the impairing of the faculties of salvation, 
and ultimately the loss of them. It really 
means that the very soul itself becomes 
piecemeal destroyed, until the very capa- 
city for God and righteousness is gone. 
Natural Law, Degeneration. 

March 28th. 

Be not deceived. The words which all 
of us shall one day hear, sound not of 
theology, but of life ; not of churches and 
saints, but of the hungry and the poor ; 
not of creeds and doctrines, but of shelter 
and clothing j not of Bibles and prayer- 



Urummonto gear 33ooft. 63 

books, but of cups of cold water in the 
name of Christ. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

March 29th. 
True, a man will often have to wrestle 
with his God — but not for growth. The 
Christian life is a composed life. The 
Gospel is Peace. 

Natural Law, Growth. 

March 30th. 

The natural life not less than the 
eternal is the gift of God. But life in 
either case is the beginning of growth, 
and not the end of grace. To pause where 
we should begin, to retrograde where we 
should advance, to seek a mechanical se- 
curity that we may cover inertia and 
find a wholesale salvation in which there 



64 ©rumtnotttj gear SSaofe* 

is no personal sanctification — this is 
Parasitism. 

Natural Law, Semi-Parasitism, 

March 31st. 

Love is not a thing of enthusiastic 
emotion. It is a rich, strong, manly, vig- 
orous expression of the whole round Chris- 
tian character — the Christ-like nature in 
its fullest development. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



My regret 
Becomes an April violet, 
And buds and blossoms like the rest. 

Tennyson. 



Brummontj gear Back, 67 

April 1st. 

Man" struggles to grow himself. He 
makes the church into a workshop, when 
God meant it to be a beautiful garden. 
And even in his closet, where only should 
reign silence, — a silence as of the moun- 
tains whereon the lilies grow, — is heard 
the roar and tumult of machinery. 

Natural Law, Growth. 

April 2d. 

What is mystery to many men, what 
feeds their worship, and at the same time 
spoils it, is that area around all great truth 
which is really capable of illumination, 
and into which every earnest mind is per- 
mitted and commanded to go with a light. 

Natural Law, Biogenesis. 



68 ©tttntmonb gear Booft. 

April 3d. 

Every character has an inward spring : 
let Christ be it. Every action has a key- 
note : let Christ set it. 

The Changed Life. 

April 4th. 

The Incarnation is the life revealing 
the type. . . . But why should God be 
revealed ? Why, indeed, but for man ? 
Why but that "beholding as in a glass 
the glory of the Only Begotten we should 
be changed into the same Image " ? 

Natural Law, Conformity to Type. 

April 6th. 

Christianity marks the advent of what 
is simply a new kingdom. It is, in the 
conception of its Eounder, a kingdom for 
which all its adherents must henceforth 



©rummonto gear Boofc, 69 

exclusively live and work, and which 
opens its gates alone upon those who, 
having counted the cost, are prepared to 
follow it if need be to the death. 

Natural Law, Classification, 

April 6th. 
The popular impression is that a man, 
to be what is called lost, must be an open 
and notorious sinner. He must be one 
who has abandoned all that is good and 
pure in life, and sown to the flesh with all 
his might and main. But this principle 
goes further. It says simply, " If we neg- 
lect." 

Natural Law, Degeneration. 

April 1th. 
The irreligious man's correspondences 
are concentrated upon himself. He wor- 
ships himself. Self-gratification rather 



70 Urumm0tti gear JSooft, 

than self-denial ; independence rather than 
submission — these are the rules of life, 
and this is at once the poorest and the 
commonest form of idolatry. 

Natural Law, Death. 

April 8th. 

From time to time the taunt is flung 
at religion that the future life of Chris- 
tianity is simply a prolonged existence, an 
eternal monotony, a blind and indefinite 
continuance of being. The Bible never 
could commit itself to any such empty 
platitude, nor could Christianity ever 
offer to the world a hope so colorless. 
Natural Law, Eternal Life. 

April 9th. 

To examine ourselves is good, but use- 
less unless we also examine environment. 



©rumm0ttti gear 3800ft. 71 

To bewail our weakness is right, but not 
remedial. The cause must be investigated 
as well as the result. 

Natural Law, Environment, 

April 10th. 

No form of vice, not worldliness, not 
greed of gold, not drunkenness itself, does 
more to un-Christianize society than evil 
temper. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

April 11th. 

The test of spirituality is that you cannot 
tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. 
If you can tell, if you can account for it 
on philosophical principles, on the doctrine 
of influence, on a favorable environment, 
it is not growth. 

Natural Law, Growth. 



72 ©rummotrti gear JSooft, 

April 12th. 

A man" does not give up medicine be- 
cause there are quack doctors, and no man 
has a right to give up his Christianity 
because there are spurious or inconsistent 
Christians. 

How to Learn How 

April ISth. 

No man is called to a life of self-denial 
for its own sake. It is in order to gain 
a compensation which, though sometimes 
difficult to see, is always real and always 
proportionate. 

Natural Law, Mortification. 

April 14th. 

Christ never said much in mere words 
about the Christian graces. He lived them ; 
He was them. Yet we do not merely copy 



JBrummflttto gear Book* 73 

Him. We learn His art by living with 

Him, like the old apprentices with their 

masters. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

April loth. 

You cannot cut and dry truth. You 
cannot accept truth ready-made without it 
ceasing to nourish the soul as truth. You 
cannot live on theological forms without 
becoming a parasite and ceasing to be a 

man. 

Natural Law, Parasitism, 

April 16th. 

Whatever rest is provided by Chris- 
tianity for the children of God, it is cer- 
tainly never contemplated that it should 
supersede personal effort. And any rest 
which ministers to indifference is immoral 



74 ©rummonti gear 3fooft* 

and unreal — it makes parasites and not 

men. 

Natural Law, Semi-Parasitism, 

April 11th. 
Through whatever media it reaches us, 
all true joy and gladness find their source 
in Christ. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

April 18th. 
The religion of Jesus has probably 
always suffered more from those who have 
misunderstood than from those who have 
opposed it. 

Natural Law, Biogenesis. 

April 19th. 
Nothing is a hardship to Love, and 
nothing is hard. I believe that Christ's 
yoke is easy. Christ's " yoke " is just His 



Drumntcmti gear Book, 75 

way of taking life. And I believe it is an 
easier way than any other. I believe it is 
a happier way than any other. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

April 20th. 
I would not rob a man of his problems, 
nor would I have another man rob me of 
my problems. They are the delight of life, 
and the whole intellectual world would be 
stale and unprofitable if we knew every- 
thing. 

How to Learn How. 

April 21st. 
The ceaseless chagrin of a self-centred 
life can be removed at once by learning 
meekness and lowliness of heart. He who 
learns them is forever proof against it. 
He lives henceforth a charmed life. 

Pax Vobiscum. 



76 ©rumnumi gear Book, 

April 22d. 

The miser does not possess gold ; gold 
possesses him. But the meek possess it. 
"The meek," said Christ, " inherit the 
earth." They do not buy it ; they do not 
conquer it ; but they inherit it. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

April 23d. 

As the branch, ascends, and the bud 
bursts, and the fruit reddens under the co- 
operation of influences from the outside 
air, so man rises to the higher stature under 
invisible pressure from without. 

The Changed Life. 

April 24th. 

The whole difference between the Chris- 
tian and the moralist lies here. The Chris- 



©rummontt gear ISooft* 77 

tian works from the centre, the moralist 
from the circumference. The one is an 
organism, in the centre of which is planted 
by the living God a living germ. The 
other is a crystal, very beautiful it may 
be ; but only a crystal — it wants the vital 
principle of growth. 

Natural Law, Growth. 

April 2bth. 

He that would be happy, let him remem- 
ber that there is but one way, — it is more 
blessed, it is more happy, to give than to 
receive. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

April 26th. 

One little weakness, we are apt to 
fancy, all men must be allowed; and we 
even claim a certain indulgence for that 



78 ©rummonti gear 33oofu 

apparent necessity of nature which we call 
our besetting sin. Yet to break with the 
lower environment at all, to many, is to 
break at this single point. 

Natural Law, Mortification. 

April 21th. 

In will-power, in mere spasms of ear- 
nestness, there is no salvation. Struggle, 
effort, even agony, have their place in 
Christianity, as we shall see ; but this is 
not where they come in. 

The Changed Life. 

April 28th. 

The sifting of the correspondences is 
done by nature. This is its last and 
greatest contribution to mankind. Over 
the mouth of the grave the perfect and the 
imperfect submit to their final separation. 



JDrummanti fgear $$aak. 79 

Each goes to its own — earth to earth, 

ashes to ashes, dust to dust, spirit to 

spirit. 

Natural Law, Eternal Life, 

April 29th. 

Nature is not more natural to my body 
than God is to my soul. 

Natural Law, Environment. 

April 30th. 

Life is the finest of the fine arts : it 
has to be learned with lifelong patience ; 
and the years of our pilgrimage are all too 
short to master it triumphantly. 

Pax Vobiscum. 



It is not growing like a tree 
In bulk, doth make man better be, 
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, 
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere. 

A lily of a day 
Is fairer far in May, 
Although it fall and die that night — 
It was the plant and flower of light. 
In small proportions we just beauties see, 
And in short measure life may perfect be. 

Ben Jonson. 



©rummontj gear Booft, 83 

May 1st. 

All thorough work is slow; all true 
development by minute, slight, and insen- 
sible metamorphoses. The higher the 
structure, moreover, the slower the prog- 
ress. 

The Changed Life. 

May 2d. 

There is a little preliminary that the 
astronomer has to do before he can make 
his observation. He has to take the cap 
off his telescope. Many a man thinks he 
is looking at truth when he is only look- 
ing at the cap. 

How to Learn How. 

May 3d. 

Truth is not the product of the intel- 
lect alone ; it is the product of the whole 



84 2irumm0tttJ gear JSooft. 

nature. The body is engaged in it, and 
the mind and the soul. 

How to Learn How. 



May 4th. 

I do not say, remember, that the Chris- 
tian life to every man, or to any man, can 
be a bed of roses. No educational pro- 
cess can be this. And perhaps if some men 
knew how much was involved in the sim- 
ple "learn" of Christ, they would not 
enter his school with so irresponsible a 
heart. For there is not only much to learn, 
but much to unlearn. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

May 6th. 
Men sigh for the wings of a dove, that 
they may fly away and be at rest. But 



UrummontJ gear Book* 85 

flying away will not help us. The king- 
dom of God is within you. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

May 6th. 
Love begets love. It is a process of in- 
duction. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

May 1th. 
Creeds are human versions of divine 
truths. And we do not ask a man to ac- 
cept all the creeds, any more than we ask 
him to accept all the Christians. We ask 
him to accept Christ, and the facts about 
Christ and the words of Christ. 

How to Learn How. 

May Sth. 
We have truth in nature as it came from 
God. And it has to be read with the same 



86 Btummonti gear ISooft, 

unbiassed mind, the same open eye, the 
same faith, and the same reverence, as all 
other revelation. 

Preface, Natural Law, 

May 9th. 

A photograph prints from the negative 
only while exposed to the sun. While the 
artist is looking to see how it is getting 
on he simply stops the getting on. What- 
ever of wise supervision the soul may need, 
it is certain it can never be over-exposed, 
or that, being exposed, anything else in 
the world can improve the result or quicken 
it. The creation of a new heart, the re- 
newing of a right spirit, is an omnipotent 
work of God. Leave it to the Creator. 
" He who hath begun a good work in you 
will perfect it unto that day." 



Brummontj gear 3800ft. 87 

May 10th. 

As a mere spectacle the universe to-day- 
discloses a beauty so transcendent that he 
who disciplines himself by scientific work 
finds it an overwhelming reward simply to 

behold it. 

Instruction, Natural Law. 

May 11th. 

You will give yourselves to many things. 
Give yourselves first to Love. Hold things 
in their proportion. Let at least the first 
great object of our lives be to achieve the 
character of Christ, which is built round 
Love. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

May 12th. 

There is no spontaneous generation in 
religion any more than in nature. Christ 



88 ©rttmmotiti f|ear 3800ft, 

is the source of life in the spiritual 
world; and he that hath the Son hath 
life, and he that hath not the Son, what- 
ever else he may have, hath not life. 

Natural Law, Biogenesis. 

May 13th. 

Do not think that nothing is happening 
because you do not see yourself grow, or 
hear the whir of the machinery. All 
great things grow noiselessly. You can 
see a mushroom grow, but never a child. 
The Changed Life. 

Hay Uth. 

How shall we escape if we neglect ? 
The answer is, we cannot. In the nature 
of things we cannot. We cannot escape 
any more than a man can escape drowning 
who falls into the sea, and has neglected 



©rummonti gear 3800ft* 89 

to learn to swim. In the nature of things 
he cannot escape, — nor can he escape who 
has neglected the great salvation. 

Natural Law, Degeneration. 

May 15th. 

Apart even from the parable of the 
lily, the failures of the past have taught 
most of us the folly of disquieting our 
selves in vain, and we have given up the 
idea that by taking thought we can add a 
cubit to our stature. 

Natural Law, Growth. 

May 16th. 

Men may not know how fruits grow, 
but they do know that they cannot grow 
in five minutes. Some lives have not even 
a stalk on which fruits could hang, even 
if they did grow in five minutes. Some 



90 HBrumnumtJ gear 38oofe, 

have never planted one sound seed of joy- 
in all their lives ; and others, who may 
have planted a germ or two, have lived 
so little in sunshine that they never could 
come to maturity. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

May 11th. 

Joy is as much a matter of cause and 
effect as pain. No one can get joy by 
merely asking for it. It is one of the 
ripest fruits of the Christian life, and, like 
all fruits, must be grown. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

May ISth. 

Man is a mass of correspondences ; and 
because of these, because he is alive to 
countless objects and influences to which 



JSrummortti gear 23oofe* 91 

lower organisms are dead, he is the most 
living of all creatures. 

Natural Law, Death. 

May 19th. 
Live after Christ, in His Spirit, as in 
His Presence, and it is difficult to think 
what more you can do. 

The Changed Life. 

May 20th. 
If the Christian is to " live unto God," 
he must " die unto sin." If he does not 
kill sin, sin will inevitably kill him. 
Eecognizing this, he must set himself to 
reduce the number of his correspondences 
— retaining and developing those which 
lead to a fuller life, unconditionally with- 
drawing those which in any way tend in 
an opposite direction. 

Natural Law, Mortification. 



92 ©rummonfc gear JSooft* 

May 21st. 

This law, that the degree of life varies 
with the degree of correspondence, holds 
to the minutest details throughout the 
entire range of living things. Life be- 
comes fuller and fuller, richer and richer, 
more and more sensitive, and responsive 
to an ever-widening environment, as we 
rise in the chain of being. 

Natural Law, Eternal Life. 

May 22d. 

To seize continuously the opportunity 
of more and more perfect adjustment to 
better and higher conditions, to balance 
some inward evil with some purer influ- 
ence acting from without — these are the 
secrets of a well-ordered and successful 

life. 

Natural Law, Environment. 



JBrummonb gear JSoofu 93 

May 23d. 

Love is an effect. And only as we ful- 
fil the right condition can we have the 
effect produced. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

May 24th. 

Contemplate the love of Christ, and 
you will love. Stand before that mirror, 
reflect Christ's character, and you will be 
changed into the same image, from tender- 
ness to tenderness. There is no other way. 
The Greatest Thing in the World. 

May 25th. 

However active the intellectual or moral 
life may be, from the point of view of this 
other life it is dead. That which is flesh 
is flesh. It wants, that is to say, the kind 



94 fflrummcmti gear Book, 

of life which constitutes the difference 
between the Christian and the not-a-Chris- 
tian. It has not yet been "born of the 
Spirit." 

Natural Law, Conformity to Type. 

May 26th. 

Our churches overflow with members 
who are mere consumers. Their interest 
in religion is purely parasitic. Their only 
spiritual exercise is the automatic one of 
imbibition, the clergyman being depended 
on every Sunday for at least a week's 
supply. 

Natural Law, Parasitism. 

May 21th. 

I say that the men who are perplexed, 
the men who come to you with serious and 



Brummottti gear Book, 95 

honest difficulties, are the best men. They 
are men of intellectual honesty, and can- 
not allow themselves to be put to rest by 
words, or phrases, or traditions, or theo- 
logies, but who must get to the bottom of 
things for themselves. 

How to Learn How. 



May 28th. 

What, then, is the deeper distinction 
drawn by Christianity ? What is the es- 
sential difference between the Christian 
and the not-a-Christian, between the spirit- 
ual beauty and the moral beauty ? It is 
the distinction between the organic and the 
inorganic. Moral beauty is the product of 
the natural man, spiritual beauty of the 
spiritual man. 

Natural Law, Classification. 



96 fflrummonli gear SSoaJu 

May 29th. 

I do not think we ourselves are aware 
how much our religious life is made up of 
phrases ; how much of what we call Chris- 
tian experiences is only a dialect of the 
churches, a mere religious phraseology, 
with almost nothing behind it in what we 
really feel and know. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

May SOth. 

What a noble gift it is, the power of 
playing upon the souls and wills of men, 
and rousing them to lofty purposes and 
noble deeds ! 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



ffirummcnti gear Book. 97 

May 31st. 

Christianity possesses the noblest words 
in the language ; its literature overflows 
with terms expressive of the greatest and 
happiest moods which can free the soul 
of man, — Rest, Joy, Peace, Faith, Love, 
Light. 

Pax Vobiscum. 



'Tis heaven alone that is given away, 
'Tis only God may be had for the asking; 
There is no price set on the lavish summer, 
And June may be had by the poorest comer. 

Lowell. 



©rummanti gear 23oaft, 101 

June 1st. 

Philosophy does well in proving that 
matter is a non-entity. We work with it 
as the mathematician with an x. The 
reality is alone the spiritual. 

Introduction, Natural Law. 

June 2d. 
What Christian experience wants is 
thread, a vertebral column, method. It 
is impossible to believe that there is no 
remedy for its unevenness and dishevel- 
ment, or that the remedy is a secret. The 
idea, also, that some few men, by happy 
chance or happier temperament, have ac- 
quired the secret, as if there were some 
sort of knack or trick of it, is wholly 
incredible. Religion must ripen its fruit 
for men of every temperament ; and the 
way even into its highest heights must be 



102 ©rummonti gear Boofe, 

by a gateway through which the peoples 
of the world may pass. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

June 3d. 
Morality, at the utmost, only develops 
the character in one or two directions. It 
may perfect a single virtue here and there, 
but it cannot perfect all. 

Natural Law, Growth. 

June 4th. 

To copy virtues, one by one, has some 
what the same effect as eradicating the 
vices one by one ; the temporary result is 
an overbalanced and incongruous character. 

One sometimes finds Christians of this 

species, over-fed one side of their nature, 

but dismally thin and starved-looking on 

the other. 

The Changed Life. 



©rummontJ gear Book. 103 

June 5th. 

If one only of the channels of sin be 
obstructed, experience points to an almost 
certain overflow through some other part 
of the nature. Partial conversion is almost 
always accompanied by such moral leak- 
age ; for the pent-up energies accumulate 
to the bursting-point, and the last state of 
that soul may be worse than the first. 

The Changed Life, 

June 6th. 

The natural man belongs essentially to 
this present order of things. He is en- 
dowed simply with a high quality of the 
natural animal life. But it is life of so 
poor a quality that it is not life at all. 
He that hath not the Son hath not life. 
Natural Law, Biogenesis. 



104 ©rummotrti gear JSoafe* 

June 7th. 

Realize it thoroughly : it is a methodi- 
cal, not an accidental world. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

June 8th. 

" Love is the fulfilling of the law." It 
is the rule for fulfulling all rules, the new 
commandment for keeping all the old com- 
mandments — Christ's one secret of the 
Christian life. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

June 9th. 

Charity is only a little bit of Love, one 
of the innumerable avenues of Love ; and 
there may even be, and there is, a great deal 
of charity without Love. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



©rummonti ffsar Boofe* 105 

June 10th. 
The soul that sinneth " it shall die/' not 
necessarily because God passes sentence 
of death upon it, but because it cannot 
help dying. It has neglected " the func- 
tions which resist death," and has always 
been dying. The punishment is in its 

very nature. 

Natural Law, Degeneration. 

June 11th. 
It is no use proposing finely devised 
schemes, or going through general pious 
exercises, in the hope that somehow rest 
will come. The Christian life is not cas- 
ual but causal. All nature is a standing 
protest against the absurdity of expecting 
to secure spiritual effects, or any effects, 
without the employment of appropriate 

causes. 

Pax Vobiscum. 



106 ©rummontj gear JSoofe, 

June 12th. 

Eespect doubt for its origin. It is an 
inevitable thing. It is not a thing to be 
crushed. It is a part of man as God made 
him. Heresy is truth in the making, and 
doubt is the prelude of knowledge. 

How to Learn How. 

June l%th. 
What we have correspondence with, 
that we call natural ; what we have little 
or no correspondence with, that we call 
spiritual. But when the appropriate cor- 
responding organism appears, that is, 
which can freely communicate with these 
outer circles, the distinction necessarily 
disappears. The spiritual to it becomes 
the outer circle of the natural. 

Natural Law, Death. 



Etummonto gear Bcofe. 107 

June Itth. 

Have you ever noticed how much of 
Christ's life was spent in doing kind things 
— in merely doing kind things ? Run 
over it with that in view, and you will 
find that He spent a great proportion of 
His time simply in making people happy, 
in doing good turns to people. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

June 15th. 

Now, the least experience of life will 

make it evident that a large class of sins 

can only be met, as it were, by suicide. 

The peculiar feature of death by suicide 

is that it is not only self-inflicted, but 

sudden. And there are many sins which 

must either be dealt with suddenly, or not 

at all. 

Natural Law, Mortification. 



108 Urummonti gear tSooft* 

June 16th. 

"The greatest thing/' says some one, 
"a man can do for his Heavenly Father, 
is to be kind to some of his other chil- 
dren." 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

June 11th. 

It is a good thing to think ; it is a bet- 
ter thing to work ; it is a better thing to 

do good. 

How to Learn How. 

June ISth. 

Uninterrupted correspondence with a 
perfect environment is eternal life ac- 
cording to science. To know God is to 
" correspond " with God. To correspond 
with God is to correspond with a Perfect 



©rummonft gear Book 109 

Environment. And the organism which 
attains to this, in the nature of things, 
must live forever. 

Natural Laiv, Eternal Life. 

June 19th, 

All religious truths are doubtable. 
There is no absolute proof for any one of 
them. Even that fundamental truth, the 
existence of a God, no man can prove 
by reason. 

How to Learn How. 

June 20th. 

Without distinction, without calcula- 
tion, without procrastination, love. Lav- 
ish it upon the poor, where it is very easy ; 
especially upon the rich, who often need 
it most ; most of all upon our equals, where 



310 ©rummonti gear Booft, 

it is very difficult, and for whom perhaps 
we each do least of all. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

June 21st. 

And what is the spiritual environment ? 
It is God. Without this, therefore, there 
is no life, no thought, no energy, nothing 
— " without Me ye can do nothing." 

Natural Law, Environment. 

June 22d. 
The beauty of friendship is its infinity. 
The Changed Life. 

June 23d. 

There is a difference between trying to 
please and giving pleasure. Give pleasure. 
Lose no chance of giving pleasure. For 



©rumnuml gear Back, 111 

that is the ceaseless and anonymous tri- 
umph of a truly loving spirit. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



June 24th. 

When a man becomes a Christian the 
natural process is this : The Living Christ 
enters into his soul. Development begins. 
The quickening life seizes upon the soul, 
assimilates surrounding elements, and be- 
gins to fashion it. According to the great 
Law of Conformity to Type, this fashion- 
ing takes a specific form. It is that of 
the artist who fashions. And all through 
life this wonderful, mystical, glorious, yet 
perfectly definite, process goes on, " until 
Christ be formed n in it. 

Natural Law, Conformity to Type. 



112 ©rumm0ttli gear JSooft* 

June 25th. 
Glory, then, is not something intangible 
or ghostly or transcendental. If it were 
this how could Paul ask men to reflect it ? 
Stripped of its physical enswathement it 
is beauty, moral and spiritual beauty — 
beauty infinitely real, infinitely exalted, 
yet infinitely near, and infinitely commu- 
nicable. 

The Changed Life. 

June 26th. 

When Christ said He would give men 
rest, He meant simply that He would put 
them in the way of it. By no act of con- 
veyance would or could He make over 
His own rest to them. He could give 
them His receipt for it. That was all. 

Pax Vobiscum. 



ffitummonti gear JScoft. 113 

June 21th. 

We know but little now about the con- 
ditions of the life that is to come. But 
what is certain is that love must last. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

June 2Sth. 

I say the final test of religion at that 
great day is not religiousness, but love ; 
not what I have done, not what I have 
believed, not what I have achieved, but 
how I have discharged the common char- 
ities of life. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

June 29th. 

Every organism has its own reaction 
upon nature, and the reaction of the spirit- 
ual organism upon the community must 



114 ©rummonli gear Book* 

be looked for. In the absence of any such, 
reaction, in the absence of any token that 
it lived for a higher purpose, or that its 
real interests were those of the kingdom 
to which it professed to belong, we should 
be entitled to question its being in that 
kingdom. 

Natural Law, Classification. 

June 30th. 

What must one work at ? What is 
that which if duly learned will find the 
soul of man in rest ? Christ answers 
without the least hesitation. He specifies 
two things, — Meekness and Lowliness. 
" Learn of Me," He says, " for I am meek 
and lowly in heart." 

Pax Vobiscum. 



All, through the languid July day 
I catch the scent of new-mown hay. 

Ella Wlieeler. 



©rumtnonti gear Baoft, 117 

July 1st. 

The correspondence of the spiritual man 
possesses the supernatural virtues of the 
Eesurrection and the Life. 

Here is a relation established with eter- 
nity. The passing years lay no limit- 
ing hand on it. Corruption injures it not. 
It survives death. It, and it only, will 
stretch beyond the grave, and be found 
inviolate — 

" When the moon is old, 
And the stars grow cold, 
And the books of the Judgment-Day unfold." 

Natural Law, Eternal Life. 

July 2d. 

Everything else in all our lives is 
transitory. Every other good is visionary. 
But the acts of love which no man knows 



118 fflrummottli gear Book* 

about, or can ever know about — they 
never fail. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



July 3d. 

Who is Christ ? He who fed the hun- 
gry, clothed the naked, visited the sick. 
And where is Christ ? Where ? — whoso 
shall receive a little child in My name, 
receiveth Me. And who are Christ's ? 
Every one that loveth is born of God. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

July 4th. 

Christ's yoke is simply His secret for 
the alleviation of human life. His pre- 
scription for the best and happiest method 

of living. 

Pax Vobiscum. 



©rumnumtj gear JSocfu 119 

July 5th. 

With Browning, " I say that man was 
made to grow, not stop." Or, in the deeper 
words of an older book, " Whom He did 
foreknow, He also did predestinate . . . 
to be conformed to the image of His Son." 
The Changed Life. 

July 6th. 

The kingdom of God is not going to 

religious meetings, and hearing strange 

religious experiences; the kingdom of 

God is doing what is right — living at 

peace with all men, being filled with joy 

in the Holy Ghost. 

"First J" 

July 1th. 

I have seen almost all the beautiful 
things God has made ; I have enjoyed al- 



120 ©rummonfc gear Book, 

most every pleasure that He has planned 
for man, and yet as I look back I see 
standing out above all the life that has 
gone, four or five short experiences when 
the love of God reflected itself in some 
poor imitation, some small act of love of 
mine, and these seem to be the things 
which alone of all one's life abide. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



July Sth. 

The position we have been led to take 
up is not that the Spiritual Laws are anal- 
ogous to the Natural Laws, but that they 
are the same laws. It is not a question 
of analogy, but of identity. 

Introduction, Natural Law. 



©tummonti gear Book* 121 

July 9th. 

When the experimental religion of a 
man, of a community, or of a nation, 
wanes, religion wanes — their idea of God 
grows indistinct, and that man, commu- 
nity, or nation, becomes infidel. 

How to Learn How. 

July 10th. 

Thank God the Christianity of to-day 

is coming nearer the world's need ! Live 

to help that on. Thank God men know 

better by a hair's-breadth what religion is, 

what God is, who Christ is, where Christ 

is! 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

July 11th. 

As memory scans the past, above and 
beyond all the transitory pleasures of life, 



122 ©rumtttflttti gear Booft, 

there leap forward those supreme hours 
when you have been enabled to do unno- 
ticed kindness to those round about you 
— things too trifling to speak about, but 
which you feel have entered into your 
eternal life. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

July 12th. 

" Learn of Me, and ye shall find rest." 

Rest, that is to say, is not a thing that can 

be given, but a thing to be acquired. It 

comes not by an act, but by a process. 

It is not to be found in a happy hour, as 

one finds a treasure ; but slowly, as one 

finds knowledge. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

July 13th. 
Life is not one of the homeless forces 
which promiscuously inhabit space, or 



©rummon* gear Bcoft. 123 

which can be gathered like electricity 
from the clouds and dissipated back again 
into space. Life is definite and resident ; 
and spiritual life is not a visit from a 
force, but a resident tenant in the soul. 
Natural Law, Biogenesis. 

July 14th. 

Christianity is a fine inoculation, a 
transfusion of healthy blood into an anaemic 
or poisoned soul. No fever can attack a 
perfectly sound body ; no fever of unrest 
can disturb a soul which has breathed the 
air or learned the ways of Christ. * 

Pax Vobiscum. 

July loth. 

Every soul is a Book of Judgment, and 
Nature, as a recording angel, marks there 



124 Brumm0ti* gear Booft, 

every sin. As all will be judged by the 
great Judge some day, all are judged by 
Nature now. The sin of yesterday, as 
part of its penalty, has the sin of to-day. 
All follow us in silent retribution on our 
past, and go with us to the grave. 

Natural Law, Degeneration, 

July 16th. 

Religion does not consist in negatives, 
in stopping this sin and stopping that. 
The perfect character can never be pro- 
duced with the pruning-knife. 

The Changed Life. 

July 11th. 

No man can become a saint in his sleep ; 
and to fulfil the condition required demands 
a certain amount of prayer and medita- 
tion and time, just as improvement in any 



ffirummonti gear Book. 125 

direction, bodily or mental, requires prep- 
aration and care. Address yourselves to 
that one thing; at any cost have this 
transcendent character exchanged for 

yours. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

July 18th. 

No physician of souls . . . has any pre- 
scription for spiritual growth. It is the 
question he is most often asked and most 
often answers wrongly. He may prescribe 
more earnestness, more prayer, more self- 
denial, or more Christian work. These 
are prescriptions for something, but not 
for growth. Not that they may not en- 
courage growth ; but the soul grows as the 
lily grows, without trying, without fretting, 
without ever thinking. 

Natural Law, Growth. 



126 ©rumnt0nti gear Book, 

July Vdth. 

If we cannot calculate to a certainty 
that the forces of religion will do their 
work, then is religion vain. And if we 
cannot express the law of these forces in 
simple words, then is Christianity not the 
world's religion but the world's conundrum. 
The Changed Life. 

July 20th. 

And this is by far the best source of 
spiritual knowledge on every account — 
obedience to God, absolute sincerity and 
loyalty in following Christ. " If any man 
do His will he shall know." 

How to Learn How. 

July 21st. 

" Love suff ereth long and is kind ; love 
envieth not ; love vaunteth not itself." 



©rummonti gear 33aok, 127 

Get these ingredients into your life. Then 
everything that you do is eternal. It is 
worth doing. It is worth giving time to. 
The Greatest Thing in the World. 

July 22d. 
Those who are in communion with God 
live ; those who are not are dead. 

Natural Law, Death. 

July 23d. 
The man who has no opinion of himself 
at all can never be hurt if others do not 
acknowledge him. Hence, be meek. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

July 2Uh. 
Man's spiritual life consists in the 
number and fulness of his correspond- 
ences with God. In order to develop these 



128 ©rummottti gear Booft* 

he may be constrained to insulate them, 
to enclose them from the other correspond- 
ences, to shut himself in with them. In 
many ways the limitation of the natural 
life is the necessary condition of the full 
enjoyment of the spiritual life. 

Natural Laiv, Mortification. 

July 26th. 
Love must be eternal. It is what God 
is. On the last analysis, then, love is life. 
Love never faileth, and life never faileth 
as long as there is love. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

July 26th. 
Sometimes when uncertain of a voice 
from its very loudness, we catch the miss- 
ing syllable in the echo. In God and 
Nature we have Voice and Echo. When 



©rummcnti gear JSooft. 129 

I hear both I am assured. My sense of 
hearing does not betray me twice. I recog- 
nize the Voice in the Echo, the Echo 
makes me certain of the Voice ; I listen 

and I know. 

Natural Law, Eternal Life. 

July 21th. 

Very few people have the opportunity 
to seek the kingdom of God at the end. 
Christ, knowing all that, knowing that 
religion was a thing for our life, not merely 
for our death-bed, has laid this command 
upon us now : " Seek first the kingdom of 
God." 

" First t " 

July 2Sth. 

One of the aptest descriptions of a hu- 
man being is that he is a mirror 



130 ©rummontf gear Boofe* 

And all human intercourse is a seeing of 
reflections. 

The Changed Life. 

July 29th. 
If events change men/ much more per- 
sons. No man can meet another on the 
street without making some mark upon 
him. We say we exchange words when 
we meet ; what we exchange is souls. 

The Changed Life. 

July SOth. 

The universal language of the human 
soul has always been, " I perish with hun- 
ger." This is what fits it for Christ. 
There is a grandeur in this cry from the 
depths which makes its very unhappiness 
sublime. 

Natural Law, Conformity to Type. 



©rummontj gear Book. 131 

July 31st. 

Eternal life also is to know God, and 
God is Love. This is Christ's own defini- 
tion. Ponder it. "This is life eternal, 
that they might know Thee, the only true 
God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast 
sent." 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



The purple fringe of the thistle blossom 

Fades into feathery white ; 
There is only a leaf on the river's bosom 

Where I saw a lily last night ; 
O August days, with your dreamy haze, 

How fleet ye are — and how bright. 

A. L. S. 



©rummonti gear Book. 135 

August 1st. 

Truth in the Bible is a fountain. It is 
a diffused nutriment, so diffused that no 
one can put himself off with the form It 
is reached, not by thinking, but by doing. 
It is seen, discerned, not demonstrated. 
It cannot be bolted whole, but must be 
slowly absorbed into the system. Its 
vagueness to the mere intellect, its refusal 
to be packed into portable phrases, its 
satisfying unsatisfyingness, its vast atmos- 
phere, its finding of us, its mystical hold 
of us — these are the tokens of its infinity. 
Natural Law, Parasitism. 

August 2d. 

We want to live forever for the same 
reason that we want to live to-morrow. 
Why do you want to live to-morrow ? It 



136 ©rummonti gear Book, 

is because there is some one who loves you, 
and whom you want to see to-morrow, 
and be with and love back. There is no 
other reason why we should live on than 
that we love and are beloved. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

August Zd. 

To love abundantly is to live abundantly, 
and to love forever is to live forever. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

August 4th, 

Love should be the supreme thing — be- 
cause it is going to last, because in the 
nature of things it is an eternal life. It 
is a thing that we are living now, not that 
we get when we die ; that we shall have a 



©rummonti gear Book. 137 

poor chance of getting when we die unless 
we are living now. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

August 6th. 

But who is to define the limits of the 
spiritual ? Even now it is very beautiful. 
Even as an enilnyo it contains some 
prophecy of its future glory. But the 
point to mark is that it doth not yet appear 
what it shall be. 

Natural Law, Classification. 

August 6th. 
Friendship is a spiritual thing. It is 
independent of matter, or space, or time. 
That which I love in my friend is not 
that which I see. What influences me in 
my friend is not his body, but his spirit. 
The Changed Life. 



138 ffirummonti gear Book* 

August 1th. 
Heaven is only the capital of the king- 
dom of God ; the Bible is the guide-book 
to it; the church is the weekly parade 
of those who belong to it. If you would 
turn to the seventeenth chapter of St. 
Luke, you will find out where the king- 
dom of God really is. " The kingdom of 
God is within you" — within you. The 
kingdom of God is inside people. 

" First I " 

August 8th. 
Christ's life outwardly was one of the 
most troubled lives that ever was lived. 
Tempest and tumult, tumult and tempest, 
the waves breaking over it all the time, 
till the worn body was laid in the grave. 
But the inner life was a sea of glass. The 
great calm was always there. 

Pax Vobiscum. 



©rummontJ gear Book, 139 

August 9th. 
No man knows what a man is till he 
has seen what a man can be without, and 
be withal a man. That is to say, no man 
knows how great man is till he has seen 
how small he has been once. 

Tropical Africa. 

August 10th. 
If to live with men diluted to the 
millionth degree with the virtues of the 
Highest can exalt and purify the nature, 
what bounds can be set to the influence of 
Christ ? 

The Changed Life. 

August 11th. 
No one who knows the content of Chris- 
tianity, or feels the universal need of a 
religion, can stand idly by while the 



140 JBrummonti ffear 33ooft. 

intellect of his age is slowly divorcing 
itself from it. 

Preface, Natural Law. 

August 12th. 

He who is without expectation cannot 
fret if nothing comes to him. It is self- 
evident that these things are so. The 
lowly man and the meek man are really 
above all other men, above all other 
things. They dominate the world because 
they do not care for it. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

August 13th. 

"I shall never rise to the point of 
view which wishes to * raise ' faith to 
knowledge. To me, the way of truth is 
to come through the knowledge of my 
ignorance to the submissiveness of faith, 



©rummonti gear Book. 141 

and then, making that my starting-place, 
to raise my knowledge into faith." 

Introduction, Natural Law. 

August 14^/i. 

Wheist one attempts to sanctify himself 
by effort, he is trying to make his boat go 
by pushing against the mast. He is like 
a drowning man trying to lift himself out 
of the water by pulling at the hair of his 
own head. The one redeeming feature of 
the self-sufficient method is this — that 
those w T ho try it find out almost at once 
that it will not gain the goal. 

The Changed Life. 

August loth. 

The spiritual life is the gift of the 
Living Spirit. The spiritual man is no 



142 ffltummottti gear SSoaft. 

mere development of the natural man. 
He is a new creation born from above. 
Natural Law, Biogenesis. 

August 16th. 

Take into your . . . sphere of labor 
that simple charm, and your lifework 
must succeed. You can take nothing 
greater, you need take nothing less. It is 
not worth while going if you take any- 
thing less. You may take every accom- 
plishment, you may be braced for every 
sacrifice ; but if you give your body to be 
burned, and have not love, it will profit 
you and the cause of Christ nothing. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

August 11th. 

There is only one thing greater than 
happiness in the world, and that is holi- 



JBrummonti gear 33onfe, 143 

ness, and it is not in our keeping; but 

what God lias put in our power is the 

happiness of those about us, and that is 

largely to be secured by our being kind to 

them. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

August 18th. 
I wonder why it is that we are not all 
kinder than we are ? How much the 
world needs it! How easily it is done! 
How instantaneously it acts ! How infalli- 
bly it is remembered ! How superabun- 
dantly it pays itself back ! — for there is 
no debtor in the world so honorable, so su- 
perbly honorable, as Love. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

August 19th. 
If a man find the powers of sin furiously 
at work within him, dragging his whole 



144 ©rummonti gear 3800ft. 

life downward to destruction, there is only 
one way to escape his fate — to take reso- 
lute hold of salvation, and be borne by it to 
the opposite goaL 

Natural Law, Degeneration. 

August 20th. 

The infinite desirability, the infinite dif- 
ficulty of being good — the theme is as old 
as humanity. The man does not live from 
whose deeper being the same confession 
has not risen, or who would not give his 
all to-morrow if he could u close with the 
offer of becoming a better man." 

The Changed Life. 

August 21st. 

Violent efforts to grow are right in 
earnestness, but wholly wrong in principle. 



©rumnumfc gear Booft, 145 

There is but one principle of growth both 
for the natural and spiritual, for body and 
soul. And the principle of growing in 
grace is once more this, " Consider the 
lilies, koto they groiv." 

Natural Law, Growth. 

August 22d. 
If any man be simply willing to do His 
will, if he has an absolutely undivided 
mind about it — that man will know what 
truth is and know what falsehood is. A 
stranger will he not follow. 

How to Learn How. 

August 23d. 

The Christian experiences are governed 

by law. Men, forgetting this, expect rest, 

joy, peace, faith, to drop into their souls 

like snow or rain. But in point of fact 



146 ©rummonfc fgear Boofe* 

they do not do so ; and if they did they 
would no less have their origin in previous 
activities and be controlled by natural laws. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

August 2tth. 
The gospel offers a man life. Never 
offer men a thimbleful of gospel. Do not 
offer them merely peace, or merely rest, or 
merely safety ; tell them how Christ came 
to give men a more abundant life than 
they have — a life abundant in love, and 
therefore abundant in salvation for them- 
selves and large in enterprise for the alle- 
viation and redemption of the world. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

August 26th. 
To be carnally minded is death. We do 
not picture the possessor of this carnal 



3Btumm0ttt! gear 3S0ofe. 147 

mind as in any sense a monster. We have 
said he may be high-toned, virtuous, and 
pure. The plant is not a monster because 
it is dead to the voice of the bird ; nor is 
he a monster who is dead to the voice of 
God. The contention at present simply is 

that he is dead. 

Natural Law, Death. 

August 26th, 

We all reflecting as a mirror the char- 
acter of Christ, are transformed into the 
same Image from character to character 
— from a poor character to a better one, 
from a better one to a little better still, 
from that to one still more complete, un- 
til by slow degrees the Perfect Image is 
attained. 

The Changed Life. 



148 ©rummonti gear 3So0ft. 

August 21th. 
It is the law of influence that we be- 
come like those whom we habitually admire. 
Men are all mosaics of other men. 

The Changed Life. 

August 28th. 

Seek the kingdom of God first. First. 
Not many people do that. They put a lit- 
tle religion into their life — once a week, 
perhaps. They might just as well let it 
alone. It is not worth seeking the king- 
dom of God unless we seek it first. 

"First!" 

August 29th. 
Theologies are human versions of di- 
vine truths, and hence the varieties of the 
versions and the inconsistencies of them. 
How to Learn How. 



©rummanti gear Book* 149 

August 30th. 

Christ's invitation to the weary and 
heavy-laden is a call to begin life over 
again upon a new principle — upon His 
own principle. " Watch My way of doing 
things/' He says. " Follow Me. Take life 
as I take it. Be meek and lowly, and you 
will find rest." 

Pax Vobiscum. 

August 31st. 

Where love is, God is. He that dwell- 
eth in love dwelleth in God. God is Love. 
Therefore love. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



The gentian's bluest fingers 

Are curling in the sun; 
In dusty pods the milkweed 

Its hidden silk has spun. 

By all these lovely tokens 

September days are here, 
With summer's best of weather 

And autumn's best of cheer. 

Helen Hunt Jackson. 



©rummon** gear JSock, 153 

September 1st. 
The kingdom of God is the kingdom of 
brothers. It is a great society, founded by 
Jesus Christ, of all the people who try to 
be like Him, and live to make the world 
better and sweeter and happier. 

"First!" 

September 2d. 
All fruits grow — whether they grow in 
soil or in the soul. No man can make 
things grow. He can get them to grow by 
arranging all the circumstances and fulfill- 
ing all the conditions. But the growing is 

done by God. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

September 3d. 
Love is success, love is happiness, love 
is life. " Love," I say with Browning, " is 
energy of life." 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



154 ©rummonto gear Book* 

September 4th. 

The immortal soul must give itself to 
something that is immortal. And the 
only immortal things are these : " Now 
abideth faith, hope, love ; but the greatest 
of these is love." 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

September 6th. 

The eternal life, the life of faith, is 
simply the life of the higher vision. Faith 
is an attitude — a mirror set at the right 
angle. 

The Changed Life. 

September 6th. 

The real danger of mysticism is not 
making it broad enough. 

The Changed Life. 



©rummonto gear JSoofe, 155 

September 1th. 

The only legitimate questions ore dare 
put to nature are those which concern uni- 
versal human good* and the divine inter- 
pretation of things. 

Preface, Natural Law. 

September 8th. 

It is only when we see what it was in 
Him, that we know what the word rest 
means. The eternal calm of an invulner- 
able faith ; the repose of a heart set deep 
in God. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

September 9th. 

The effect of the introduction of law 
among the scattered phenomena of nature 
has simply been to make science, to trans- 



156 BrummontJ gear Buoft* 

form knowledge into eternal truth. The 
same crystallizing touch is needed in reli- 
gion. 

Preface, Natural Law. 

September 10th. 

God, the Eternal God, is Love. Covet 
therefore that everlasting gift, that one 
thing which it is certain is going to stand, 
that one coinage which will be current in 
the universe when all the other coinages 
of all the nations of the world shall be 
useless and unhonored. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

September 11th. 

With nature as the symbol of all of 
harmony and beauty that is known to man, 
must we still talk of the supernatural, not 
as a convenient word, but as a different 



Drummonto gear Book, 157 

order of world, an unintelligible world, 
where the Reign of Mystery supersedes 
the Reign of Law ? 

Introduction, Natural Law. 

September 12th. 

Christianity is the infusion into the 
spiritual man of a new life, of a quality 
unlike anything else in nature. This con- 
stitutes the separate kingdom of Christ, 
and gives to Christianity alone, of all the 
religions of mankind, the strange mark of 

divinity. 

Natural Law, Biogenesis. 

September 13th. 

All that is in the world, the lust of 
the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride 
of life, are but for a little while. Love 



158 30rummont( gtar Book. 

not the world, therefore. Nothing that it 
contains is worth the life and consecration 
of an immortal soul. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

September 14th. 

Salvation is a definite process. If a 
man refuse to submit himself to that pro- 
cess, clearly he cannot have the benefits 
of it. It may be mere carelessness or 
apathy. Nevertheless, the neglect is fatal. 
He cannot escape because he will not. 

Natural Law, Degeneration. 

September 15th. 

The Christian, like the poet, is born, 
not made. 

Natural Law, Growth. 



©rummnnti gear JSoofc* 159 

September 16th, 
If a man could make himself humble 
to order, it might simplify matters ; but 
we do not find that this happens. Hence 
death, death to the lower self, is the near- 
est gate and the quickest road to life. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

September 11th. 
If I correspond with the world, I be- 
come worldly; if with God, I become 

divine. 

Natural Law, Death. 

September 18th. 
John says of the world, not that it is 
wrong, but simply that it " passeth away." 
There is a great deal in the world that is 
delightful and beautiful ; there is a great 
deal in it that is great and engrossing ; 
but it will not last. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



160 Brummonti gear Book, 

September 19th. 

The penalty of evading self-denial also, 
is just that we get the lesser instead of the 
larger good. To refuse to deny one's self 
is just to be left with the self undenied. 
When the balance of life is struck, the 
self will be found still there. 

Natural Law, Mortification. 

September 20th. 

How the love of God melts down the 
unlovely heart in man, and begets in him 
the new creature, who is patient, and hum- 
ble, and gentle, and unselfish. And there 
is no other way to get it. There is no 
mystery about it. We love others, we 
love everybody, we love our enemies, 
because He first loved us. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



©rummontj gear Book* 161 

September 2\st. 
To know God, to be linked with God, 
to be linked with eternity — if this is not 
the " eternal existence " of biology, what 
can more nearly approach it ? 

Natural Law, Eternal Life. 

September 22d. 
From the very nature of salvation it is 
plain that the only thing necessary to 
make it of no effect is neglect. 

Natural Law, Degeneration. 

September 23d. 

You are placed where you are, to help 
on there the kingdom of God. You can- 
not do that when you are old and ready to 
die. By that time your companions will 
have fought their fight, and lost or won. 



162 JBrummottti gear Book* 

If they lose, will you not be sorry that you 
did not help them ? Will you not regret 
that only at the last you helped the king- 
dom of God ? Perhaps you will not be 
able to do it then. And then your life 
has been lost indeed ! 

"First!" 

September 24th. 

It does not occur to us how natural the 
spiritual is. We still strive for some 
strange, transcendent thing ; we seek to 
promote life by methods as unnatural as 
they prove unsuccessful ; and only the 
utter incomprehensibility of the whole 
region prevents us seeing — what we al- 
ready half suspect — how completely we 
are missing the road. 

Natural Law, Environment. 



©rummonti gear Book, 163 

September 2oth. 

Storms and winds and calms are not 
accidents, but are brought about by ante- 
cedent circumstances. Eest and peace 
are but calms in man's inward nature, 
and arise through causes as definite and 
inevitable. 

September 26th. 

Is conformity to type produced by the 
matter or by the life, by the protoplasm 
or by the type ? Is organization the cause 
of life, or the effect of it ? It is the 
effect of it. Conformity to type, there- 
fore, is secured by the type. Christ 
makes the Christian. 

Natural Law, Conformity to Type. 



164 Urummonti gear JSooft* 

September 21th. 
Kemaist side by side with Him who 
loved us and gave Himself for us, and 
you too will become a permanent magnet, 
a permanently attractive force. That is 
the inevitable effect of love. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

September 28th. 

It is not a strange thing, then, for the 
soul to find its life in God. This is its na- 
tive air. God, as the environment of the 
soul, has been from the remotest age the 
doctrine of all the deepest thinkers in reli- 
gion. 

Natural Law, Environment. 

September 29th. 

Nature is always noiseless. All her 
greatest gifts are given in secret. And we 



JBrumnumti gear Boofu 165 

forget how truly every good and perfect 
gift comes from without and above, be- 
cause no pause in her changeless benefi- 
cence teaches us the sad lesson of depriva- 
tion. 

Natural Law, Environment. 

September 30th. 

Is life not full of opportunities for love ? 
Every man and woman every day has a 
thousand of them. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



O suns and skies and clouds of June, 
And flowers of June together, 

Ye cannot rival for one hour 
October's bright blue weather. 

Helen Hunt Jackson. 



Brummonti gear JSaoJu 169 

October 1st. 
To await the growing of a soul is an 
almost divine act of faith. How pardon- 
able, surely, the impatience of deformity 
with itself, of a consciously despicable 
character standing before Christ, wonder- 
ing, yearning, hungering, to be like that ? 
Yet must one trust the process fearlessly, 
and without misgiving. " The Lord, the 
Spirit," will do His part. 

The Changed Life. 

October 2d. 
Best is the mood of the man who says 
with Browning, "God's in His heaven, 
all's right with the world." 

Pax Vobiscum. 

October 3d. 
To watch uninterruptedly the same few 
yards of universe unfold its complex his. 



170 ©rummottli fgear JSoaft* 

tory ; to behold the hourly resurrection 
of new living things, and miss no change 
or circumstance, even of its minuter parts ; 
to look at all, especially the things you 
have seen before a hundred times, to do all 
with patience and reverence — this is the 
only way to study nature. 

Tropical Africa. 

October 4th. 
As the highest of the sciences, theology, 
in the order of evolution, should be the last 
to fall into rank. It is reserved for it to 
perfect the final harmony. 

Introduction, Natural Law. 

October 5th. 
That is the supreme work to which we 
need to address ourselves in this world, to 
learn love. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



Urummonft gear JSook. 171 

October 6th. 

If we try to influence or elevate others, 
we shall soon see that success is in propor- 
tion to their belief of our belief in them. 
The Greatest Thing in the World. 

October 1th. 

If it makes no impression on a man to 
know that God will visit his iniquities 
upon him, he cannot blind himself to the 
fact that nature will. 

Natural Law, Degeneration. 

October 8th. 

The influences we meet are not simply- 
held for a moment and thrown off again 
into space. Each is retained where first it 
fell, and stored up in the soul forever. 

The Changed Life. 



172 ©rummonti gear iSaoft. 

October 9th. 
The Christian is a new man in Christ 
Jesus. He is rooted and built up in 
Christ ; he abides in the vine, and so abid- 
ing, not toiling or spinning, brings forth ' 

fruit. 

Natural Law, Growth. 

October 10th. 
Will power does not change men. 
Time does not change men. Christ does. 
Therefore, "Let that mind be in you 
which was also in Christ Jesus." 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

October 11th. 
It is a wonderful thing that here and 
there in this hard, uncharitable world, 
there should still be left a few rare souls 
who think no evil. This is the great un- 
worldliness. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



JSrummontJ gear 33ooft. 173 

October 12th. 

The respect of another is the first 
restoration of the self-respect a man has 
lost; our ideal of what he is becomes to 
him the hope and pattern of what he may 
become. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

October 13th. 

The lesson of self-denial, that is to 
say of limitation, is concentration. Do not 
spoil your life, it says, at the outset with 
unworthy and impoverishing correspond- 
ences ; and if it is growing truly rich and 
abundant, be very jealous of ever diluting 
its high, eternal quality with anything of 
earth. 

Natural Law, Mortification. 



174 ©rummonti gear Sforaft* 

October 14th. 

Faith is never opposed to reason in the 
New Testament; it is opposed to sight. 
You will find that a principle worth think- 
ing over. 

Hoiv to Learn How. 

October 16th. 
The relation between the spiritual man 
and his environment is, in theological lan- 
guage, a filial relation. With the new 
spirit, the filial correspondence, he knows 
the Father — and this is life eternal. 

Natural Law, Eternal Life. 

October 16th. 

Living in the spiritual world is just as 
simple as living in the natural world ; and 
it is the same kind of simplicity, for it is 



JBrummontJ gear JSooft. 175 

the same kind of world — there not 

two kinds of worlds. 

Natural Law, Environment, 

October 11th. 
Love "thinketh no evil," imputes no 
motive, sees the bright side, puts the best 
construction on every action. What a de- 
lightful state of mind to live in ! What 
a stimulus and benediction even to meet 
with it for a day. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

October 18th. 

Believers and unbelievers have been 
compelled to acknowledge that Christian- 
ity holds up to the world the missing type, 
the perfect man. 

Natural Law, Conformity to Type. 



176 Urummoni gear Booft, 

October 19th. 

It is the deliberate verdict of the Lord 
Jesus that it is better not to live than not 
to love. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

October 20th. 

Our companionship with Him, like all 
true companionship, is a spiritual commun- 
ion. All friendship, all love, human and 
divine, is purely spiritual. It was after 
He was risen that He influenced even the 
disciples most. 

The Changed Life. 

October 21st. 

One can never evacuate life of mystL 
cism. Home is full of it, love is full of 
it, religion is full of it. Why stumble at 



DrummonU gear Book. 177 

that in the relation of man to Christ which 
is natural in the relation of man to man ? 

The Changed Life. 

October 22d. 

The natural life owes all to environ- 
ment; so must the spiritual. iSTow, the 
environment of the spiritual life is God. 
As nature, therefore, forms the comple- 
ment of the natural life, God is the com- 
plement of the spiritual. 

Natural Law, Environment, 

October 23cL 

That is why you and I are in the world 
at all — not to prepare to go out of it some 
day, but to serve God actively in it now. 

"First!" 



178 ©rummontj gear Book, 

October 24th. 
We do not demand of nature directly to 
prove religion. That was never its func- 
tion. Its function is to interpret. And 
this, after all, is possibly the most fruitful 
proof. 

Introduction, Natural Law. 

October 26th. 
The spirit of Christ, interpenetrating 
ours, sweetens, purifies, transforms all. 
This only can eradicate what is wrong, 
renovate and regenerate and rehabilitate 
the inner man. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

October 2Mh. 
What we are stretches past what we 
do, beyond what we possess. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



©rummonti gear JSooft* 179 

October 21th. 
The elimination of mystery from the 
universe is the elimination of religion. 
However far the scientific method may 
penetrate the spiritual world, there will 
always remain a region to be explored by 
a scientific faith. 

Introduction, Natural Law. 

October 28th. 
The infallible receipt for happiness, 
then, is to do good ; and the infallible 
receipt for doing good is to abide in 
Christ. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

October 29th. 
Why a virtuous man should not simply 
grow better and better, until in his own 
right he enter the kingdom of God, is 



180 3Brumtnonti gear Book. 

what thousands honestly and seriously 
fail to understand. But if it be simply 
pointed out that this is the same absurd- 
ity as to ask why a stone should not grow 
more and more living, till it enters the 
organic world, the point is clear in an 
instant. 

Natural Law, Biogenesis. 

October SOth. 

Guilelessness is the grace for suspi- 
cious people. And the possession of it is 
the great secret of personal influence. In 
an atmosphere of suspicion men shrivel 
up ; but in that atmosphere they expand, 
and find encouragement and educative 
fellowship. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



Brummonto gear ISook, 181 

October 31st. 

Everywhere God creates, man utilizes. 
All the work of the world is merely a tak- 
ing advantage of energies already there. 
Natural Law, Growth. 



The wild November comes at last, 

Beneath a veil of rain ; 
The night-wind blows its folds aside, 

Her face is full of pain. 

A barren realm of withered fields, 
Bleak woods of fallen leaves, 

The palest moon that ever dawned, 
The dreariest of eves. 

Richard Stoddard. 



B^tnnmonti gear Book* 185 

November 1st. 
Souls are made sweet not by taking 
the acid fluids out, but by putting some- 
thing in — a great love, a new spirit, the 
Spirit of Christ. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

November 2d. 

The most obvious lesson in Christ's 
teaching is that there is no happiness in 
having and getting anything, but only in 
giving. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

November 3d. 

Joy lies in mere constant living in 
Christ's presence, with all that it implies 
of peace, of shelter, and of love. 

Pax V obis cum. 



186 ©rumm0titi gear Booft, 

November 4th. 

Religion out of its place in a human 
life is the most miserable thing in the 
world. There is nothing that requires so 
much to be kept in its place as religion, 
and its place is what ? Second ? Third ? 
"First/" 

" First I " 

November 6th. 

Character is a thing built up by slow 
degrees, hourly changing for better or for 
worse, according to the images which flit 
across it. 

The Changed Life. 

November 6th. 
If you cannot at once and always feel 
the play of His life upon yours, watch for 
it also indirectly. Christ is the Light of 



HBtummcmtJ gear Book, 187 

the world, and much of His Light is re- 
flected from things in the world — even 
from clouds. 

The Changed Life. 

November 1th. 

Earnest souls who are attempting sahc- 
tification by struggle, instead of sanctifl- 
cation by faith, might be spared much 
humiliation by learning the botany of the 
Sermon on the Mount. 

Natural Law, Growth. 

November 8th. 
Politeness has been defined as love in 
trifles. Courtesy is said to be love in little 
things. And the one secret of politeness 
is to love. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



188 ©rummottti gear JSooft* 

November 9th. 
Many a man thinks he is looking at 
truth when he is only looking at the specta- 
cles he has put on to see it with. He is look- 
ing at his own spectacles. 

How to Learn How. 

November 10th. 
The peculiarity of ill-temper is that it 
is the vice of the virtuous. It is often the 
one blot on an otherwise noble character. 
The Greatest Thing in the World. 

November 11th. 

Men are not only mirrors, but these 

mirrors, so far from being mere reflectors 

of the fleeting things they see, transfer 

into their own inmost substance and hold 

in permanent preservation the things that 

they reflect. 

The Changed Life. 



©tumm0nti ff ear JSooft. 189 

November 12th. 

The work begun by nature is finished 
by the supernatural — as we are wont to 
call the higher natural. And as the veil is 
lifted by Christianity it strikes men dumb 
with wonder. For the goal of evolution is 
Jesus Christ. 

Natural Law, Conformity to Type. 

November 13th. 

Put a seal upon your lips, and forget 
what you have done. After you have been 
kind, after Love has stolen forth into the 
world and done its beautiful work, go back 
into the shade again, and say nothing 
about it. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



190 ©rummonti gear Booh. 

November 14th. 
Whatever hopes of a " heaven " a neg- 
lected soul may have, can be shown to be 
an ignorant and delusive dream. How is 
the soul to escape to heaven if it has 
neglected for a lifetime the means of 
escape from the world and self? And 
where is the capacity for heaven to come 
from if it be not developed on earth ? 

Natural Law, Degeneration. 

November 16th. 
Each man in the silence of his own soul 
must work out this salvation for himself 
with fear and trembling — with fear, real- 
izing the momentous issue of his task; 
with trembling, lest before the tardy work 
be done the voice of death should sum- 
mon him to stop. 

Natural Law, Degeneration. 



2Brumtn0ntJ gear Book, 191 

November 16th. 
Words can scarcely ever be long imper- 
sonal. Christ Himself was a Word, a Word 
made flesh ; make His words flesh; do them, 
live them, and you must live Christ. 

The Changed Life. 

ovember 11th. 
Love hides even from itself. Love 
waives even self - satisfaction. " Love 
vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up." 
The Greatest Thing in the World. 

November 18th. 
It is not said that the character will de- 
velop in all its fulness in this life. That 
were a time too short for an evolution so 
magnificent. In this world only the corn- 
less ear is seen ; sometimes only the small 
yet still prophetic blade. 

Natural Law, Growth. 



192 Brummonti gear Book* 

November l§th. 
The problem of the Christian life finally 
is simplified to this — man has but to 
preserve the right attitude. To abide in 
Christ, to be in position, that is all. 

Natural Law, Growth. 

November 20th. 
This compatibility of ill-temper with 
high moral character is one of the stran- 
gest and saddest problems of ethics. The 
truth is, there are two great classes of 
sins — sins of the body and sins of the 
disposition. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

November 21st. 
Mark well also the splendor of this 
idea of salvation. It is not merely final 
" safety," to be forgiven sin, to evade the 



JBrummonti gear Book. 193 

curse. It is not, vaguely, " to get to 
heaven." It is to be conformed to the 
Image of the Son. It is for these poor 
elements to attain to the supreme beauty. 
Natural Law, Conformity to Type. 

November 22d. 
Friendship is the nearest thing we 
know to what religion is. 

The Changed Life. 

November 23d. 
Christ does not say it is wrong to love 
life ; He simply says it is loss. Each man 
has only a certain amount of life, of time, 
of attention — a definite, measurable quan- 
tity. Therefore Christ says, " Hate life, 
limit life, lest you steal your love for it 
from something that deserves it more. 
Natural Law, Mortification. 



194 ©rummottti fftar JSoafe, 

November 24th. 
In" the vocabulary of science eternity 
is only the fraction of a word. It means 
mere everlastingness. To religion, on the 
other hand, eternity has little to do with 
time. To correspond with " the true God 
and Jesus Christ " is eternal life. 

Natural Law, Eternal Life. 

November 25th, 

Fruit first, joy next ; the one the cause 

or medium of the other. Fruit-bearng is 

the necessary antecedent. Joy both the 

necessary consequent and the necessary 

accompaniment. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

November 26th. 
Meantime let it be noted on what the 
Christian argument for immortality really 
rests. It stands upon the pedestal on 



©rummonti gear Book. 195 

which the theologian rests the whole of 
historical Christianity, — the resurrection 
of Jesus Christ. 

Natural Law, Eternal Life. 

November 21th. 

Try to give up the idea that religion 
comes to us by chance, by mystery, or by 
caprice. It comes to us by natural law, 
or by supernatural law ; for all law is 
divine. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

November 28th. 

Paul does not summon us to give up 
our rights. Love strikes much deeper. 
It would have us not seek them at all, ig- 
nore them, eliminate the personal element 
altogether from our calculations. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 



196 ©mmttumti gear JSooL 

November 29th. 
Obey Him and you must love Him, 
Abide in Him and you must obey Him, 
Cultivate His friendship. 

The Changed Life. 

November 30th. 

A yoke is not an instrument of torture ; 
it is an instrument of mercy. It is not a 
malicious contrivance for making work 
hard ; it is a gentle device to make hard 
labor light. And yet men speak of the 
yoke of Christ as if it were a slavery, and 
look upon those who wear it as objects of 
compassion. 

Pax Vobiscum. 



Ah, distinctly I remember 
It was in the bleak December, 
And each separate dying ember 
Cast its ghost upon the floor. 

Edgar Allen Poe. 



©mmm0ttlJ gear Boofe, 199 

December 1st. 

Christianity as Christ taught it is the 

truest philosophy of life ever spoken. I 

care not who the person is, or through 

what vale of tears he has passed, or is 

about to pass, there is a new life for him 

along this path. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

December 2d. 

Banish forever from your minds the 

idea that religion is subtraction. It does 

not tell us to give things up, but rather 

gives us something so much better that 

they give themselves up. 

"First!" 

December 3d. 
Sunlight is stored in every leaf, from 
leaf through coal, and it comforts us thence 
when days are dark and we cannot see the 



200 ©rumttumti fgear Book, 

sun. Christ shines through men, through 
books, through history, through nature, 
music, art. Look for Him there. 

The Changed Life. 

December 4th. 
A science without mystery is unknown. 
A religion without mystery is absurd. 

Introduction, Natural Law. 

December 5th. 
There is a sense of sight in the reli- 
gious nature,, Neglect this, leave it un- 
developed, and you never miss it. You 
simply see nothing. But develop it and 
you see God. And the line along which 
to develop it is known to us. Become 
pure in heart. The pure in heart shall 

see God. 

Natural Law, Degeneration. 



JBrummonl) gear iSaoft, 201 

December 6th. 

In those days men were working their 
passage to heaven by keeping the Ten 
Commandments, and the hundred and ten 
other commandments which they had 
manufactured out of them. Christ said, 
I will show you a more simple way. If 
you do one thing you will do these hun- 
dred and ten things without ever thinking 
about them. If you love you will uncon- 
sciously fulfil the whole law. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

December 1th. 

" In looking back upon my experience, 
that part of my life which stands out, and 
which I remember most vividly, is just 
that part that has had some conscious 
association with Christ. All the rest is 



202 ©rummonti gear l&ook. 

pale and thin, and lies like clouds on the 
horizon." 

The Changed Life. 

December Sth. 
God has planned the world to incite 
men to intellectual activity. 

How to Learn How. 

December 9th. 

The path beyond may lie in hopeless 
gloom ; but it is not barred. 

Natural Law, Eternal Life. 

December 10th. 

We have been accustomed to be told 
that the greatest thing in the religious 
world is faith. That great word has been 
the key-note for centuries of the popular 



©rummonti gear Book. 203 

religion, and we have easily learned to 
look upon it as the greatest thing in the 
world. Well, we are wrong. " The great- 
est of these is love." 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

December 11th. 
If a man does not exercise his arm he 
develops no biceps muscle ; and if a man 
does not exercise his soul he acquires no 
muscle in his soul, no strength of charac- 
ter, no vigor of moral fibre, no beauty of 
spiritual growth. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

December 12th. 

That morality has a basis in human 

society, that nature has a religion, surely 

makes the death of the soul when left to 

itself all the more appalling. It means 



204 ©rumnumti gear Book* 

that, between them, nature and morality 
provide all for virtue — except the life to 
live it. 

Natural Law, Death. 

December loth. 
It is a peculiarity of the sinful state 
that as a general rule men are linked to evil 
mainly by a single correspondence. 

Natural Law, Mortification. 

December 14th. 

Imitation is mechanical, reflection or- 
ganic. The one is occasional, the other 
organic. In the one case man comes to 
God and imitates Him ; in the other, God 
comes to man and imprints Himself upon 
him. 

The Changed Life. 



JSrummonb gear 33ook. 205 

December 16th. 

Christianity removes the attraction of 
the earth, and this is one way in which it 
diminishes men's burdens. It makes them 
citizens of another world. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

December 16th, 

The only greatness is unselfish love. 
Even self-denial in itself is nothing, is 
almost a mistake. Only a great purpose 
or a mightier love can justify the waste. 
The Greatest Thing in the World. 

December 11th. 

To learn arithmetic at fifty is difficult 
— much more to learn Christianity. To 
learn simply what it is to be meek and 
lowly, in the case of one who has had no 



206 ©rummonti ffear 3300ft* 

lessons in that in childhood, may cost him 
half of what he values most on earth. 

Pax Vobiscum. 

December ISth. 

Whenever you attempt a good work 
you will find other men doing the same 
kind of work, and probably doing it better. 
Envy them not. Envy is a feeling of ill- 
will to those who are in the same line as 
ourselves, a spirit of covetousness and 
detraction. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

December 19th, 

The value of any theological question 
depends upon whether it has a sanctifying 
influence. If it has not, don't bother about 
it. Don't let it disturb your minds until 



Drummonti gear 53oab. 207 

you have exhausted all truths that have 
sanctification within them. 

How to Learn How. 

December 20th. 

It will never do to exaggerate one truth 
at the expense of another, and a truth may 
be turned into a falsehood very, very 
easily, by simply being too much enlarged 
or too much diminished. 

How to Learn How. 

December 21st. 

Instead of telling people to give up 
things, we are safer to tell them to " seek 
first the kingdom of God," and then they 
will get new things and better things, and 
the old things will drop off of themselves. 
That is what is meant by the "new heart." 

"First!" 



208 ffitumnumti gear Book, 

December 22d. 
Christ saw that men took life painfully. 
To some it was a weariness, to others a fail- 
ure, to many a tragedy, to all a struggle 
and a pain. How to carry this burden of 
life had been the whole world's problem. 
It is still the whole world's problem. 
And here is Christ's solution : " Take my 
yoke and learn of Me, and you will find it 

easy." 

Pax Vobiscum. 

December 23d. 
The life of the senses, high and low, 
may perfect itself in nature. Even the 
life of thought may find a large comple- 
ment in surrounding things. But the 
higher thought and the conscience and the 
religious life can only perfect themselves 

in God. 

Natural Law, Environment. 



ISrummonti gear Book, 209 

December 2Uh. 
Only one thing truly need the Christian 
envy, — the large, rich, generous soul which 
envieth not. 

The Greatest Thing in the World. 

December 2oth. 
And there is a sense of touch to be 
acquired, such a sense as the woman had 
who touched the hem of Christ's garment. 
That wonderful electric touch called faith, 
which moves the very heart of God. 

Natural Law, Degeneration. 

December 26th. 
When shall we learn that the pursuit of 
holiness is simply the pursuit of Christ ? 
Sanctity is in character, and not in moods. 
Divinity in our own plain, calm humanity, 
and in no mystic rapture of the soul. 

The Changed Life. 



210 JDrummonti gear 33oofe. 

December 21th. 
The true problem of the spiritual life 
may be said to be, do the opposite of 
neglect. It will just mean that you are so 
to cultivate the soul that all its powers 
will open out to God, and in beholding 
God be drawn away from sin. 

Natural Law, Degeneration. 

December 28th. 
It is a solemn moment when the slow- 
moving mind reaches at length the verge 
of its mental horizon, and, looking over, 
sees nothing more. Its straining makes the 
abyss but more profound. Its cry comes 
back without an echo. Where is the en- 
vironment to complete this rational soul ? 
Men either find one, — One, — or spend the 
rest of their days in trying to shut their 

eyes. 

Natural Law, Environment. 



©rumnumD gear JSock* 211 

December 29th. 
Fruit-bearing without Christ is not an 
improbability, but an impossibility. As 
well expect the natural fruit to flourish 
without air and heat, without soil and sun- 
shine. 

Natural Law, Environment. 

December 30th. 
Do not quarrel with your lot in life. 
Do not complain of its never-ceasing cares, 
its petty environment, the vexations you 
have to stand, the small and sordid souls 
you have to live and work with. Above 
all, do not resent temptation. That is the 
practice which God appoints you ; and it 
is having its work in making you patient 
and humble and generous and unselfish 
and kind and courteous. 

The Greatest Thing in the IVorld. 



212 ©rummonti £|tar Book* 

December 31st. 

The visible is the ladder up to the in- 
visible, the temporal is but the scaffolding 
of the eternal. And when the last imma- 
terial souls have climbed through this ma- 
terial to God, the scaffolding shall be 
taken down, and the earth dissolved with 
fervent heat — not because it was base, but 
because its work was done. 

Instruction, Natural Law* 



, 



